Who's Listening To Marvin Gaye?

I've heard of him a long time ago--actually my dad's a crazy fan. But I always thought of Marvin Gaye as a singer of soulish sex songs (Like those kind of songs usually, but he was too much of a screamer at the time). I bought the digitally remastered edition of his 1971 album "what's going on" on a whim (which, suprisingly, wasn't a sex/love song, but a response to the vietnam war), and I've been addicted ever since. I've listened to every single track consistently for over a year, and I've not been bored just yet ( I get bored with songs easily)...they must be that good.

Anyways, who has listened to any of his songs in the album? I'll list them here:

What's going on?

What's happening brother?

Mercy Mercy Me (Ecology)

Save the Children

Inner City Blues (makes me want to Holla)

God is Love

Right On

Flying High

Wholy Holy

Sad Tomorrows

There're songs he recorded with Tammi Terrell in the fifties: Aint nothing like the Real Thing, Your Love (Is All I Need), and so forth. Anyone in the same shoes as I? Which song of his do you like best?

In the abstract, the details of Marvin Gaye's death read like a Biblical parable: Man hollers at wife. Son, defending mother, hollers back at father. Father hollers at son. Son smites father. Father kills son.

But the devil is in the details.

The slaying, 20 years ago this spring, was the climax of a long-festering, pathological relationship between the troubled, drug-addled soul singer and his oddball father.

Their relationship featured violence, competition, humiliation, rancor and hate. They had argued and fought most of their lives, perhaps because they were too much alike to ever hope to get along.

Each was deeply conflicted.

Marvin Sr. was a terminally out-of-work fundamentalist preacher who ranted against the sins of indulgence. Yet he was an avid consumer of vodka and a zealous cross-dresser.

Like his dad, Marvin Jr. was a contradictory character, made up of equal parts hubris and self-loathing, boundless egomania and debilitating insecurities.

He consumed prodigious amounts of cocaine and as a result spent his life in debt, despite earning millions.

"How much have I spent in toot over the years?" Gaye mused a few years before his death. "I don't want to know... Enough to certify me as a fool. You'd have to call me a drug addict and a sex freak."

True, sex was another of Gay's singular contradictions.

Marketed as Motown's lover man, he was a misogynist who beat the women he professed to love—a trait he inherited from his father. He sang ballads and duets about soulful romance, yet forced his lovers into degrading and kinky acts that satisfied his sadism and voyeurism.

"The dark side of life and the dark side of the mind really fascinated him," Janice Hunter, Gaye's second wife, told biographer Steve Turner. "There was stuff that I can't even talk about that just went so deep, so dark and so bizarre... Forbidden, dangerous, scary, off-the-wall ways of thinking and behaving."

Gaye barred Hunter from pursuing her dream of becoming a singer.

"I'm the last of the great chauvinists," he told David Ritz, another biographer. "I like to see women serve me—and that's that. In Jan's case, serving me meant feeding my fantasies—my evil fantasies."

Gaye was a chronic masturbator and connoisseur of Indecency. He struggled with fear of flying, stage fright, impotence and other forms of sexual dysfunction, paranoia, irrational jealousies and homophobia.

He was envious of men who sang in lower registers than he could because he feared his voice would seem effeminate by comparison. Growing up, kids teased him about his "sissy" father, Marvin Pentz Gay Sr. Marvin Jr. added the "e" to his stage name as a teenager.

At his father's insistence, Marvin Jr. spent the first third of his life suppressing all urges to indulge in secular vices. Once freed of his father's rule, he spent the final two-thirds of his life indulging every vice that struck his fancy.

Yes, Marvin Sr. shot and killed Marvin Jr. on April 1, 1984. But their story is much more than a "domestic dispute," as old school cops might call it.

freewilly u say i'm a bushman cos i havent heard of some musician rite? No prob girl, its not your fault. Have nothing to say to ya..just keep livin life and opening ur mouth to say watever enters in it

Marvin Gaye's entire recorded output signifies the development of black music from raw rhythm and blues, through sophisticated soul to the political awareness of the early 70's, and the increased concentration on personal and sexual politics thereafter.

And I think that Gaye's remarkable vocal range remains a testament for all subsequent soul vocalists, and his 'lover man' stance has been frequently mimiked

In very simple terms, Marvin Gaye's contribution to Black Music over the past four decades is immeasurable. I think he was one of soul music's premier performers whose achievements are legendary. A man I'd always love his songs.

Marvin marvin........one hell of a crooner......just this evening I was listening to an up-to-date copyright shaggy version of sexual healing......still very groovy like that. To think of the number of artists who have copyrighted that song is amazing......tells you how fine a song it was. Oh and plus they used it on one of Kevin Hill episodes....great legend Mr Gaye was.....

men! I love that song so much (sexual healing), he put so much soul into that song, sometimes when i listen i feel like the guy was actually getting healing from sex. I also love the version by Michael Bolton, don't ever get tired of listening to the song over and over again.

I got to know him through Fantasia Barrino when she rendered his song 'I Heard It Through The Grapevine'. I like the original rendition a bit better, and also 'How Sweet It Is To Be Loved By You', 'You Are Everything', and 'Ain't No Mountain High Enough'.

I am completely unimpressed by 'Sexual Healing', which seems to be his most most popular song. I don't see why people like it.